


Justified

by poemygod



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Poe Dameron (Comics)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 23:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13201359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poemygod/pseuds/poemygod
Summary: How do you justify it? How do you know who are the good guys or the bad guys?Poe's inner struggle with making the tough calls.





	Justified

**death doesn’t discriminate**

**|| JUSTIFIED ||**  
  
  

_Stay low_   

A weight had settled on his shoulders, the constant thud his only company, fists slamming into the training bag over and over… Sweat trailing down his face, Poe ran his hand over his brow, trying to keep the perspiration from dripping into his eyes. With a deep breath, he kept up the routine, muscle memory taking over as his body moved like a machine.   

Hands up.  
Block.  
Jab left.  
Right.  
Sweep.  
  

It was almost second nature.   

He’d trained with his father as a boy, then L’ulo when Shara had passed away. It was the same everyday. He could map out the running paths through the Yavin jungle with his eyes closed. Even before he entered the Academy, Poe was set with a regimented routine that rivaled anything they put him through in basic training.   

_Go fast_   

Panting out a puff of air, he stopped for a moment, dark eyes staring ahead at the bag. He didn’t expect to see anything different or new, some sort of revelation or light at the end of the tunnel. Brow furrowing as he clenched his jaw, staring and waiting for it to open up and provide him with an answer to a question he wouldn’t ask.   

The pilot always found himself in the training room after a hard mission.   

Coping skills.   

That’s what one of the nurses had called it during one of the mandatory therapy sessions he’d been forced to attend after the incident on The Finalizer. Whatever this was, Poe found little comfort in labeling it. In truth, he found little comfort in the whole procedure, but it was routine at this point.   

A constant in the chaos.   

It was late; the color of the training bag had distorted to an almost garish white. Just that realization alone made him flinch, flashes of trooper helmets flooding his mind.   

Bucket heads.   

A sneer tugged at his lip, glaring deeply and striking out at the bag hard, half expecting a burst of red to explode from it’s bulging side.   

**”We all bleed the same, Dameron.”**   

The words echoed in his mind as a new fierceness blossomed in his chest, an aching anger he couldn’t explain. He needed to hit, needed to hurt. Whether it was himself or someone else that he wanted to maim, he wasn’t sure. Leia had looked at him in a way that had shaken him to his core that day. It wasn’t a serious glance. He’d been on the receiving end of her stern stare since childhood. This was different.   

Her eyes had drilled past the tough war-weathered outer layers, piercing into the boy who had only wanted to follow in his parents footsteps to herodom.   

**”You can’t justify it. This war… you will spend your entire life trying to make sense of the why. The what if’s. You take the shots. You do what needs to be done. Everything else is politics and paperwork. Don’t look back.”**   

And he hadn’t.   

Gritting his teeth together harder, he let out a growl as he hit the pad vigorously, hands tightened into balls of ire. Knuckles bruised and raw, each punch punctuated with a grunt, his entire frame felt on edge. If any kink were thrown into the line, he’d snap, broken into a million pieces by the justification.   

_Kill first_   

War was no fairytale.   

His mother had painted a picture of it for him as child. Dreams of daring pilots, men and women fighting side by side, the rebels defeating the Empire. For years, she’d lulled him to sleep with stories of people she had flown with, their tales of heroism shaping his destiny.   

How do you tell a child not everyone comes home?   

_Die last_   

Even in the Academy he had been able to keep up the façade, studying all of the great battles of the previous wars and putting faces to the names his mother had woven into his bedtime stories. Poe hadn’t let it eat at him, his only goal to graduate and walk the path that he’d been training for his entire life. It wasn’t until he had joined the Republic Naval fleet that he realized how naïve he had been.   

Then came the First Order.   

Every recruit learned the galaxies history in hopes that future generations wouldn’t be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Good people had fought and died, sacrificing themselves for the price of freedom. The enemy had always been a faceless enigma for Poe. First there had been droids, then eventually the clones.   

Swallowing hard, he took a step back as his chest heaved with enraged breaths, staring through the sagging bag.   

_One shot_   

Hands tight at his side, there was a time when he hadn’t felt like he needed to justify. They were at war. Good vs. Evil. Right vs. Wrong. It just made sense.   

**”How do you know?”**   

His own voice echoed in his mind, dark eyes dropping to his hands, palms up turned and open. The tape he’d wrapped around them hours ago was stained, dirt and grime ground into the material. Was it possible to see the stains that decorated his skin? How many times had he washed them until they were cracked and raw?   

The remedy to his question lay somewhere beneath the surface, hidden in the stratum of his soul that he chipped away at with each fired shot. When had his moral compass become so skewed? Had it always been that way? For years he had fought the good fight, thrown himself into the skirmish, and pushed his way to the top.   

**”How do you know you picked the right side?”**   

_One kill_   

His fists clenched, body tense as his rage boiled over again, the training bags form twisting as he threw himself against it. A primal scream tore from his throat as the cord snapped and he tumbled to the ground, pinning the decrepit bag underneath him. With each swing, he could feel the tension in his muscles build, every ounce of fury that he’d been suppressing surging into a hot pit in his gut. His vision swam, the white bag holding only one form as he beat until the gore coating it made him pause.   

Hand raised, abject horror washed over his visage as his face heated and his stomach turned. Blood oozed from his knuckles, smearing over the tarnished material as his shoulders fell forward, body caving in like a shockwave. Crumpling, Poe let himself fall beside the bag, his gaze finding the ceiling.   

He’d been fooling himself for years, rationalizing it in the only way he knew how. Droids were programmable. Clones fell into a gray area. It toed the moral line, a tightrope they all clung to desperately.   

_Not luck_   

Then the intel had come in. Children. Snatched from their families, trained killers indoctrinated in the ways of a galactic superpower looking to obliterate all that the Republic had worked for. The endless cycle churned on, but how far was he supposed to fall before the enemy looking back at him was his reflection?   

Pushing up, his knees tented, arms draped over them as he let his head hang. What right did he have? The blood on his hands weighed down by the lives he had taken without thought.  Shoot or be shot.   

To them, he was the enemy, the First Order’s brainwashing leaving them with nothing but a mission. His eyes drifted to the crimson splattered bag, tallying every trooper he’d left in the wake of blaster fire. He’d known there were people behind the helmets, and yet…     

**”Mijo, demons run when a good man goes to war.”**   

His soft exhale steadying himself like another brick in his wall, he stood and pulled the bag to the side of the room. There came a time when the justification held a cost. At what point did he let it control him? The war wouldn’t wait for him. Like all things in life it would continue on with or without Poe Dameron.   

Staring at the broken punching bag, he began to unwind the soiled tape on his hands. The reckoning would rain down on all of them eventually, the tides of the war steadily shifting to the Resistance. The losing side. His lips pressed into a firm line, he made his way into the hangar, the early rays of light filtering in through the open bay.   

He’d dedicated his life to a cause. Teeth pulling at his lower lip, he stepped into the muggy morning air, watching as the world came to life. With each breath, he pieced himself back together while the rest of the base began to wake. The cost would never justify the means. There would always be blood shed and guilt laden on the conscience of those trying to do what was right. At the end of the day, that was all he could do. Bear the weight of his justifications, balancing the cost with his own sacrifice. Inhaling deeply, he ran, feet pounding a rhythm into the earth, his morning routine continuing on like the rising of the sun.   

_All skill._      


  


**between the saints and the sinners**


End file.
